Looks like it's Pretoria for the Taiping Four gorillas

[Guest guest]

It looks like the Taiping Four gorillas will definitely be going to

Pretoria despite the SECOND letter to the Government of Malaysia from the

Government of Cameroon, this one from the Cameroon Minister himself, dated

27 August 2003, requesting the return of the gorillas (see below). What

changed the Minister's mind, if indeed it was changed? Who? How? I find it

hard to conjecture what rational arguments there might be to bring an 180

degree change of position. Why should the four gorillas be sent to the

national zoo in a country that issued permits to allow the animals to

transit its territory, whose national carrier carried the animals, and

whose national zoo lost five of six gorillas? I'd like to hear privately

from anyone interested in, or knowledgeable about, this affair. There are

so many unanswered questions. This morning I received the following message

from John Sellar of the CITES Secretariat,

 

" Dear Shirley,

 

I'm assured by South Africa that this decision was reached jointly between

its Management Authority and that of Cameroon. I've seen no reason to

question that.

 

I do not know where the DNA profiling will be conducted.

 

The Secretariat, on two occasions, suggested to Malaysia that it should

conduct (or enable) DNA profiling before it decided how to dispose of the

specimens. As you know, we are entitled to make suggestions or offer

advice to Parties but we cannot insist they act upon what we say.

 

Kind regards,

 

John

 

Letter from Minister Tanji Mbianyor to Malaysia's Minister of the Environment

 

" As a follow up of the joint letter signed by Dr. Imeh Okopido, the

Nigerian Minister of Environment, and my collaborator Mr Koulagna Koutou

Denis, last November in Santiago (Chile) and referring to the four smuggled

baby gorillas, I would like to emphasize on the hope of the Nigerian and

Cameroonian authorities to see these animals sent back to their native land

instead of being exported to a zoo in South Africa as recently reported by

Dr. Shirley McGreal of the International Primate Protection League. Let me

inform you that two other gorillas smuggled probably by the same network

were seized and repatriated to the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, in

favor of joint efforts by the Nigerian and Cameroonian government and the

CITES authorities on May 23rd of this year. This information needs to be

given in order to prevent Your Excellency from being convinced that the

Pretoria Zoo is the only [zoo] equipped for the rehabilitation of these

animals, the argument that seemingly oriented the decision of sending the

smuggled gorillas to South Africa.

I would be grateful for any measure you will take for repatriation of the

young gorillas to their native land instead of the Pretoria Zoo.

Hoping to hear from you, I pray you to accept, dear sir, the expression of

my highest regard and I stand ready for any collaboration you will judge

appropriate. Tanji Mbianyor (Minister) "